An interesting treatise on whether ANY camera can focus properly or not can be found at the Anstendig.org web-site. It’s titled “Why No Camera Can Focus” and it brings up many interesting points. It’s been around for a while (the dates indicate 1983) but many of the points it brings up are still valid today, especially it would seem, with Autofocus.

While I certainly can’t vouch for the content of the article, or the veracity of the theory, I can attest to the fact that, even with today’s advances, autofocus can be a hit-or-miss situation on cameras, including, of course, digital-cameras.

In many of the Digital Camera reviews you find on-line, focus quality and acquisition-speed are constantly mentioned, and not always favorably. Digital-camera lens reviews, of course, also point out the shortcomings of optics, whether it’s on a Nikon Digital camera, a Canon Digital camera, or any of the many other brands available.

One has to wonder, how with cost-constraints, manufacturing-tolerances, shipping-vibrations etc. they can even do as well as they do when trying to get a single-point-of-light to diverge clearly onto a surface.

Today’s auto-focus appears to based around a similar theory to the article, but it makes you wonder, when that picture you thought was in perfect-focus, didn’t turn out as sharp as you’d hoped. (read article here)

(read article here)